kk821516@ohio.edu
"Weird," you think. Perhaps a little off-putting but nevertheless you carry on with your day.
Now what if you hadn't searched the website at all. What if your friend simply speaks to you about this place you've never seen/heard of before? And then as you're browsing social media the advertisement pops up.
At this point you're more than likely creeped out and feeling oddly violated by the fact that somehow, this place you've never seen or heard of before, coincidentally appears in your advertisements right after you spoke of it aloud.
Coincidence? I think not.
In fact, we know not. We know that in today's day in age advances in technology have led to the creation of all sorts of algorithms to retrieve one person's information in order to tailor advertisements to be most effective. Frankly, it's an ingenious idea that has forever changed the public relations playing field. But when is it too much?
At one point does this data science violate ethic codes and even basic human rights?
Over 250 apps in the Google Play store - as well as the Apple App store - have access to your smartphone through a software from Alphonso, a start-up that collects TV viewing data for advertisers.
Alphonso's software does not record human speech and it explicitly states that in order for companies to access a user's microphone and location the user has to agree first.
Don't recall ever allowing your smart phone's microphone to constantly be listening to what's going on so it can send that info on over to companies making billions of dollars off it?
Well, you did. But you probably had no idea that when you opened an app for the first time and it asked you to allow the app access to your microphone, it was also asking permission to do everything mentioned above. And that's where perhaps ethics of the data collection system should be revisited.
Technically, all of this is perfectly legal and complies to Federal Trade Commission Guidelines. But if it's perfectly okay by law to, in essence, spy on users...then why are people so creeped out?
Transparency. That's the key. These apps and companies need to be transparent in telling users what is going on. Although it's not dangerous, no parent particularly wants their young child playing on an app that they feel is spying on them. Simple as that.
If the general public was aware of what services they were allowing and was also aware of the fact that, no, it's not some agent to the government spying on you, that the software is rather harmless (other than the mild violation of privacy), then maybe people would be less weirded out and feel less violated if this didn't come as a shock to them.
It's a classic case of disclosure. People want to know what's going on, even if they may not like it.
Again, it's not that this form of eavesdropping is something evil, it's an incredibly effective business method that's changing the evolution of advertising. It just comes down to what PR folk alongside journalists and many others face, lost trust from the people. Trust is so important in aforementioned professions, especially in a time where journalists and public relations have been called the enemy.
That being said, Google and Facebook have both denied using microphones to obtain information for ad targeting. For those worried about Alphonso software, there is a way to opt out of that as well.
In the end it comes down to a fine line between whats legal and what's just plain creepy. And truth be told, from an ethics standpoint, this is something that should be re-evaluated.
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